The staff here at RouterGod Online Magazine are always looking
for upcoming trends in Cisco networking. After much research we have
learned that not every client can afford Cisco's SmartNet tech support
service. In fact, while SmartNet and Cisco's Technical Assistance Center
provide sound solutions to network problems, often they are at a loss to explain
how these problems started in the first place. Cisco will solve your
problem but they will never tell you how your equipment became cursed or offer
to cast a spell to prevent future curses from harming your equipment.
Cisco does not employ any witches or Voodoo priests, yet it is no secret that
50% of all Juniper employees are certified in black magic. As much as we
love Cisco, they have clearly dropped the ball on this one. So as a public
service, the selfless, virtuous and altruistic staff at RouterGod Online
Magazine have hired world famous psychic Madame Rommon to answer your technical
support questions, all for only $5 per minute!

Madame Rommonknows Cisco!

The Phone Rings. Ring! Ring!

Madame Rommon (answers psychic hotline)

Hello my dear, this is Madame Rommon, how may I help you?

Caller

Uh..it's my router. It has a problem...

Madame Rommon

Oh, yes! But first, I need your credit card number.

Caller

Of course. it's 5XXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX and it expires 08/02, please Madam
Rommon, can you help me?

Madame Rommon

Do not worry my child, Madam Rommon knows all and sees all. Your
router has come under the influence of a malevolent spirit. Your
router is possessed by Satan!

Caller

Yes! Yes! That's what I told my boss, but he wouldn't
believe me! Everything has been fine until today, I tried to modify
the configuration of this 2620 and suddenly the router will not accept my
password.

Madame Rommon

Your router is harboring a secret, a bad secret...

Caller

How did you know! Yes! It says "Bad Secrets"! Oh my
God! I can't believe you knew that! My boss said I needed to
perform password recovery, but when I saw "Bad Secrets" on the screen, I
knew that it was more serious than that. Please Madame Rommon, tell
me what to do!

Madame Rommon

Sweet Child, we must perform an exorcism. Do not be afraid.
We must type some sacred commands into the router. These are very
special commands, so special that I will need to charge your credit card
an additional $750...Do you authorize this charge?

Marvelous, for an extra $1000 I can say a prayer for your router, do
you authorize that charge?

Caller

Yes! Yes! Please, I'll pay anything! Just help
me!

Madame Rommon

Do not fret, plug your console cable into the router and cycle the
power switch, when the router reboots, Satan will want to load the
startup-config, so you must stop Satan from loading the config. Do
you understand?

Caller

Yes, stop Satan from loading the config, how do I do that?

Madame Rommon

You must hit the BREAK key within 60 seconds of the router booting up,
you will know that you have stopped Satan if you see a " > "
prompt with no router name to the left of it.

Caller

Yes! I see the > prompt, now what should I do?

Madame Rommon

OK, here is the sacred command, enter: confreg 0x2142

Caller

So far so good, now what?

Madame Rommon

Now you must must cause the router to reboot itself, so enter the
following sacred letter: i

Caller

Wow, the router rebooted and now it's asking if I want to enter the
initial configuration dialog, what do I do?

Madame Rommon

Your router has rebooted without loading the the startup-config, the
startup-config is where the old password was stored, Your router now has a
clear running-config, but your old config remains safe, we just told the
router not to load it. Say "No". Now enter Privileged Exec
mode by entering the command: enable. Now you are in enable
mode and you didn't need a password. The next step is to load the
existing startup-config from NVRAM into your running-config, enter the
command: copy start run

Madame Rommon demonstrates palm reading machine
for use in Network Operation Centers. If this machine detects
bad karma, it will not unlock the door. Enterprise version is SNMP
capable.

Caller

Oh, I see, we changed the config register so that when we rebooted the
router using the "i" command, it loaded IOS but did not load the
config. Next we entered Priv Exec mode and loaded the config into
memory using the copy start run command, now what do we do?

Madame Rommon

Now my child you must change the password, so to global config mode by
typing: conf t. Now enter the command: enable secret
followed by your new password. Now reset the config register so
that the next time the machine boots, it will load the
startup-config. Do this now, enter the command: config-reg
0x2102.

Caller

OK, I entered a new password and set the config-register to load NVRAM,
now what?

Madame Rommon

Save the config, enter: copy run start. Now reboot you
router using the command: reload. When your router reboots,
you can use your new password to get into Enable mode!